I wasn’t prepared for the bloody massacre scene we found. Two English agents were down in the courtyard. I’d worked with them both, just as I’d worked side by side with Patsy Hampton.

Jones and another agent, in addition to a team of local detectives, were already crowded into Highsmith’s suite. The room was abuzz. Everything had turned to chaos and carnage in a burst of homicidal madness.

“Shafer went through two of my people to get here,” Jones said in an angry voice strained with tension and sadness. He was smoking a cigarette. “He came in shooting, took down Laura and Gwynn. Highsmith is dead, too. We haven’t found George Bayer yet.”

I knelt and quickly checked the damage to Oliver Highsmith’s skull. It wasn’t subtle. He’d been shot at point-blank range, and the wound was massive. I knew from Jones that Shafer had resented the senior man’s intelligence, and now he’d blown out his brains. “I told you he liked to kill. He has to do this, Andrew. He can’t stop.

“Whitehead!” I said. “The end of the game.”

Chapter 116

WE DROVE FASTER than the narrow, twisting road safely allowed, barreling toward James Whitehead’s home. It wasn’t far.

We passed a road sign that read Mallard’s Beach — San Antonio.

Sampson and I were quiet, lost in our own thoughts. I kept thinking of Christine, couldn’t stop the images from coming. “We have her.” Was that still true?

I didn’t know, and only Shafer, or possibly Whitehead, could give me the answer. I wanted to keep both of them alive if I could. Everything about the island, the exotic smells and sights, reminded me of Christine. I tried, but I couldn’t imagine a good conclusion to any of this.

We headed toward the beach and soon were skimming past private houses and a few very large estates, some with long, winding driveways that stretched a hundred yards or more from the road to the main house.

In the distance I could see the glow of other house lights, and I figured we had to be close to James Whitehead’s. Was War still alive? Or had Shafer already come and gone?

Jones’s voice came in spits over the radio: “This is his place, Alex. Glass and stone house up ahead. I don’t see anybody.”

We pulled in near the crushed-seashell driveway leading to the house. It was dark, pitch-black and satiny. There were no lights on anywhere on the property.

We jumped out of our cars. There were eight of us in all, including one team of detectives from Kingston, Kenyon and Anthony, both of whom were acting nervous.

I didn’t blame them. I felt exactly the same way. The Weasel was on a rampage, and we already knew he was suicidal. Geoffrey Shafer was a homicidal-suicidal maniac.